Damaged
by luumos
Summary: Even the tough among us are vulnerable, and when the first memories fade the rest come crashing down into nothing. One-shot


I actually can't get enough of these two, and this just came to me tonight. I hope you enjoy! (It's movie-verse, just so we're all clear!) x

**_Damaged_**

It had been relatively routine. A simple assignment. There had been plenty before. This time should have been no different, especially now there were six of them. Things were expected to have gone far smoother than usual. But then the bullets rained down, and the fires began and Stark tower collapsed on top of itself.

It had been a year since the last major threat. Things had been as they always had been for a while.

Clint was roused from sleep by a hand on his shoulder. He reacted, took hold of the person's wrist and twisted it behind their back. A groan of pain followed. Clint released Tony and sat back against the wall. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and squinted to avoid the morning light from where it poured in the window.

'I should know better than to wake a sleeping assassin, I guess,' said Tony, shaking out his arm and handing Clint a bottle of water with his good hand. 'I was feeling lucky.'

Tony eyed Clint with curiosity. He looked the same way he did three days ago; pale, tired and broken.

'So, I'm not an expert on hawks or anything – physics, maths, anything in that area and I'm your go-to guy, unless Banner is free because he's far more productive than I am, and voluntary I might add-'

'Are you going somewhere with this, Stark?' Clint interrupted, swigging from his bottle of water. He threw the empty bottle down, and Tony shrugged.

'Rogers is better at this stuff than me,' said Tony quietly.

Clint recognized the tone. It was the one Rogers had used on him days before in an effort to calm him down. The one Director Fury had used when they'd found her.

'Barton,' Tony began, but he was cut short by the ring of his phone. Upon answering it, he looked disillusioned. But by the time he'd hung up his eyes were wider and there was some life in him yet. 'Barton, I'm not trying to overstep any boundaries, or get an arrow to the eye, but she's been asking -'

'Not for me,' Clint replied quickly.

'Doesn't matter. She needs people around her that she knows –'

'But she doesn't know me!' Clint said, turning to face Tony and fixing him with a stare. He grabbed the front of Tony's shirt and shook him, his fists balling around the fabric as he pushed the Iron Man against the wall. 'All those years, all that time spent as a team, and she doesn't know me!'

Tony shoved Clint back and threw him aside. The archer didn't fight back. He'd lost his will when he'd seen her lying still amongst the wreckage. Silence fell over them for a moment, and Clint sat against the wall again, defeated.

'None of it matters,' he said, frowning and holding back far more emotion than he was willing to show. 'All that time, and now I'm back to being the guy that here's to kill her.' He looked up at Tony but the billionaire was lost for words. Clint shook his head. 'She doesn't remember us.'

'Well, maybe this is a chance to start over –'

'None of you know Tasha like I do. None of you call her that, for starters.' Clint's tone was growing bitter. 'But I'm the one that she can't remember.'

'She doesn't remember much of anything, Barton.' He paused. 'It's like you said. None of us know her like you do. You're the one she needs.' Clint looked up at him, and Tony hastily added: 'Right now. She needs you now.'

Clint remained silent, but he stood up and crossed to the window. Tony opened the door.

'Alright, good talk,' he said, leaving the archer alone.

Clint found his way to her room that evening, but he could only watch. The way she moved around, walked and talked to Fury and Agent Hill. She looked the same, and she certainly spoke the same way; low and careful, but with hints of sarcasm here and there. It was her. His partner. His Tasha.

They'd spent so long together on assignments, reading one another, figuring out how they worked, both separately and as a team. London, Japan, Budapest... Now all that had been undone and he stood alone, the same way he had on the night he'd been sent to kill her. Something in him had changed when he'd seen her though, covered in blood and barely holding it together. She was delicate and fragile; to be handled with care and she'd stirred something in him since then that he'd long forgotten how to feel. She'd kill him for even thinking it.

They'd fixed each other once before. They could do it again. They were one of the same; damaged and, until that night, irreparable. But they'd grown together, and understood what it meant to trust and feel something again even if it was never spoken about because it needn't be. They belonged to each other.

She looked up and found his eyes on her, and he thought about smiling and perhaps trying to speak to her. But she looked away again before he could make a decision. Clint turned from the room and made his way to the armoury. He needed retribution, not just for her but for himself. She was a shadow of her former self, taken away from him. Someone had to pay for that.

* * *

I just love them. I love how they were written in the film - their exchanges spoke volumes more than a blatant romantic storyline could have. Reviews are better than everything else, ever.

_Ellie x_


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